Love Invents Us (Vintage Contemporaries) - Softcover

Bloom, Amy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375750223 ISBN 13: 9780375750229

Publisher: Vintage, 1998

Synopsis

Elizabeth Taube is shy, chubby, unmoored, with parents as remote as planets, and she takes love where she finds it: at the candy counter in Frank's Five and Dime; in the dusty treasures revealed to her by Mrs. Hill, the elderly black woman she cares for and steals from; in the mirror at Furs by Klein. Elizabeth finds love in Mrs. Hill's cluttered little house and she finds it in the gaze of Max Stone, age forty-nine, teacher of English, father of three, and she takes it there, too, watching for clues to who she might be, trying on selves for his admiring eyes. And then, as she watches her high school basketball team practice one day, love takes her completely in the person of Huddie Lester, who "soaked and shone like rain on a moonlit night." Huddie and Elizabeth, Elizabeth and Huddie. Their great, urgent love takes them both, into each other and into Huddie's narrow bed. Love takes Elizabeth, Huddie and other characters in this rich novel into unimagined places and unknown parts of themselves. It doesn't heal them or save them or hand them a happy ending, but it takes them to harbor, and points the way home.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Passionate vindication of love, life and daring to differ
Love Invents Us describes, with breathtaking honesty and compassionate humour, the emotions of our ordinary lives. Elizabeth Taube, shy, chubby, isolated from parents who are as remote as planets, has to take love where she finds it: at the sweet counter at Frank's Five and Dime; in the mirror at Furs by Klein, where Mr Klein watches as she tries on his coats; and in the longing gaze of Max Stone, her married English teacher. Then, as she watches her high school basketball team practice one day, love captures her completely in the person of Huddie Lester. It takes Elizabeth, Huddie and the others whose lives intertwine with hers into places they never expected to be and into unknown parts of themselves. "Bloom writes with delicacy, wit and gut-wrenching power about the messy complexities of love, loss and damage, offering glimpses of human beings at their most vulnerable" Christina Patterson, Observer; "Bloom moves her prose along with exquisite wit and energy" Julie Myerson, Mail on Sunday

Book Description:

‘Masterful, humane and hilarious’ Kate Figes, Elle

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0375750223
• ISBN 13: 9780375750229
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224